October 14, 2023

Newsletter Leaf Journal CLXII 〜 Newsletter Explorer 〜

Newsletter Leaf Journal reviews our three newest articles, 18 links from around the web, and other new New Leaf Journal notes from the week that was.

Welcome to the 157th edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal, the official newsletter of the perennially virid online writing magazine, The New Leaf Journal. This newsletter comes to you as always from the waterproof keyboard of the editor of The New Leaf Journal, Nicholas A. Ferrell. This week was a bit short on content with just three new articles -- although all three were fairly time-intensive by my standards. You will find links to our three new pieces along with links from around the web and other news and notes below.

(No News leaf journal section this week because I have no news to report other than our new articles.)

Links from the week that was

Our three new articles...

• Citizenship Rules for Running for President of Egypt (I examine how Egypt handles dual citizenship in the context of running for president. This article may be useful if you happen to be Egyptian and are interested in fighting for the 2-5% of the vote that will not go to incumbent President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in the upcoming December election.)
• Christopher Columbidae in Brooklyn (I celebrated Columbus Day with a photo of a pigeon on top of a Brooklyn Columbus statue followed by a history of the statue itself.)
• Against "Experts Say" Headlines (I have long disliked "Experts Say" headlines. A rather poor article in the HuffPost presumably explaining the genesis of Hamas' terrorist assault on Israel offered the opportunity to examine the problems with most of the so-called experts say pieces.)

Leaves from around the web

Below, you will find 18 links from around the web sorted into different categories.

World Affairs

• Iraqi Shia militia warns the United States about involvement against Hamas
  Joe Truzman for Long War Journal. October 10, 2023.

  An indirect reminder that the United States still has a non-insignificant troop presence in Iraq.

• Kazakhstan: New Law Establishes Legal Framework for Digital Assets and Cryptomining
  Iana Fremer for the Law Library of Congress. May 1, 2023.

  One may scoff, but there is a good amount of crypto-mining in Kazakhstan.

• Beijing’s Middle East Policy is Running Aground
  Julian Spencer-Churchill and Behrouz Ayaz for The National Interest. October 3, 2023.

  A shared history of having both been conquered by Genghis Khan may leave some gaps.

Discoveries

• Sabertooth cat skull newly discovered in Iowa reveals details about this Ice Age predator
  Matthew G. Hill for The Conversation. April 3, 2023.

  "The Iowa skull, combined with other fossil evidence from the region and observations of modern large carnivores, has cast new light on the life history and behavior of sabertooth cats."

• Archaeologists find 2,000-year-old eyeshadow, blush in W. Türkiye
  Daily Sabah. September 23, 2023.

  But can you still use it?

• Florida road crews uncover 19th-century boat
  Brad Matthews for The Washington Times. October 11, 2023.

  Nice boat.

• Propeller from the SS Good News in Mbala, Zambia
  Atlas Obscura. May 26, 2023.

  The rest of the boat is in the bay...

Birds

• Fordham University students traumatized by 'scary' goose
  Jeanette Settermbre for the New York Post. April 26, 2023.

  "The freshman documented the wild goose on TikTok, where the bird can be seen charging towards passersby and even flying after them." (Nothing in this article is making me regret declining my offer of admission to Fordham years ago).

• Yes, a Pigeon is Faster for Data Transfer than Gigabit Fiber Internet
  Mark Tyson for Tom's Hardware. August 29, 2023.

  My friend and colleague Victor V. Gurbo could offer technical support.

• A Miami Suburb Overrun With Peacocks Turns to Vasectomies to Rein Them In.
  Patricia Mazzei for The New York Times. August 9, 2023.

  An opportunity to dig up my 2020 peacock article.

Sites

• Young Clock Tower in Tokyo, Japan
  Atlas Obscura. April 14, 2023.

  What in the world...

• Milk Bottle Grocery in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
  Atlas Obscura. September 14, 2023.

  I approve.

Arts and Letters

• Picturing Pregnancy in Early Modern Europe
  Rebecca Whiteley for The Public Domain Review. March 8, 2023.

  Depictions of pregnancy through the centuries.

• Japanese prison mascot appears in children’s colouring book made by prison inmates
  SoraNews24. August 25, 2023.

  I feel like I should be surprised that there the Chiba prison system has a mascot, but I am not surprised.

Aesthetics

• A Clear Trend Comes Back
  Manuel Haeussermann for IFIXIT. August 28, 2023.

  I approve of this trend. Does the tempered glass door on my desktop computer count?

• Bay Ridge's Quirky Gingerbread House Is Back on the Market
  Susan De Vries for Brownstoner. September 18, 2023.

  I never knew what it looked like inside.

Tech

• Nintendo Switch Is Not "Technically Capable" Of Running Call Of Duty Games, Says CMA
  Jim Norman for Nintendo Life. April 27, 2023.

  He says this like it is a bad thing. But FPS games tend to make me violently dizzy. I prefer to not be violently dizzy. Thus, it is good that Switch cannot run COD.

• Dasung Paperlike Color is a 25.3 inch E Ink monitor with a Kaleido 3 color display
  Brad Linter at Liliputing. July 31, 2023.

  It will be neat when these are semi-affordable.

The Old Leaf Journal

Let's look into our archives...

• Missing Columbus Day For Lack of Planning
  N.A. Ferrell. October 10, 2022.

  Like in 2022, I did not remember Columbus Day until it was actually Columbus Day. However, unlike 2022, I had an article prompt ready.

• Introducing the 1922 Better Homes in America Demonstration Week
  N.A. Ferrell. October 9, 2021.

  A look into some interesting 1920s festivities (links to follow-up articles are included in the post).

• Call in the Oligarchs to Restore Trust in Media? A Peculiar Proposal.
  N.A. Ferrell. May 19, 2021.

  Makes good for reading along with my critique the experts say headlines.

• The Japanese Citizenship Requirement for Sumo Stablemasters
  N.A. Ferrell. April 25, 2021.

  Inspired this week's piece on Egypt's rules for running for president.

• Winds of New Beginnings: Pokémon Gold & Silver
  N.A. Ferrell. October 15, 2020.

  One day short of another anniversary.

• “Technological Imbecile” Retweeted by President
  N.A. Ferrell. November 28, 2020.

  Unexpected Twitter (today known as X) stardom.

Most-turned leaves of the newsletter week

I list our most-read articles from the previous newsletter week (Friday to Saturday) in each edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal. These statistics come courtesy of Koko Analytics, our local, privacy friendly page-counting solution (see my review). Below, I present the 5 most-visited articles for 2023 newsletter week 41. (Note: All stats are for 2023 only.)

1. The Pokémon Special Split in Generation 2 – Statistics and Analysis (NAF. January 18, 2022.)
   31 appearances. 3 top placements.
2. Installing GrapheneOS on a Google Pixel 6a (NAF. May 15, 2023.)
   First appearance.
3. Peekier Search Engine Review (NAF. February 26, 2022.)
   25 appearances. 3 top placements.
4. The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei (NAF. March 14, 2021.)
   40 appearances. 14 top placements.
5. Installing Ubuntu Touch on a Google Nexus 7 (2013) (NAF. July 5, 2021.)
   13 appearances. 1 top placement.

2023 week 41 was our weakest week of the year thus far, driven largely by continued poor performance (by 2023 standards) with Google. I am not sure why the Google rank of our articles has slipped a bit, but slipped it has -- so we appear to have settled into a middling status quo in the short term. On the bright side, we are starting to see better performance with Bing and DuckDuckGo after our lengthy Bing-ban, but Google always weighs much more heavily on our traffic.

As for the top-five of the week, my Pokémon stats study had a strong week by recent standards and easily took the top spot on the ranking for the second week in a row. In second we saw the debut of my piece about installing GrapheneOS on a Google Pixel 6a (it had been close to cracking the top five on a few occasions in recent weeks). The other notable from the week is my tsuki ga kirei article limping into fourth and notching 40 weekly top fives for the second year in a row. If it makes 10 out of the final 11 top fives, it can also repeat its 2022 feat of 50 top five appearances (the prospect of a second consecutive perfect 52, alas, was lost in Newsletter Week 30).

Notable leaf journal

I wrote about moving from my Teracube 2e with /e/ OS to a Pixel 3a XL with LineageOS earlier this year. Unfortunately, my Pixel 3a XL's charging port is no longer reliable, so I ordered my own Google Pixel 6a from eBay. I am still deciding whether to go with GrapheneOS or LineageOS on it.

Taking leaf

Thank you as always for reading and following The Newsletter Leaf Journal. If you have not done so already, you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter with your email or simply add our newsletter's RSS feed to your preferred feed reader. See our following options.

I am still working on publishing all of the projects I have planned for October as we move into the second half of the month. I look forward to sharing some new articles and news next week.

Until October 21,
Cura ut valeas.